Since Gov. Jared Polis commuted the sentence of Tina Peters in May, the former Colorado county clerk, convicted in an election equipment tampering scheme, has appeared on the podcast of Steve Bannon, who believes the 2020 election was stolen from his longtime confidant President Donald Trump.
The newly paroled Peters was promoted as a speaker at the Rocky Mountain Voice Freedom Festival in Castle Rock as “a symbol of what it means to stand for truth.” She was given a “hero’s standing ovation” at the Fraud Fighter Summit in Las Vegas.
She stood next to Trump in the Oval Office, where the president described her as being imprisoned for finding “election fraud” rather than someone who caused “immeasurable damage” to election integrity and public trust, according to the judge who sentenced her.
Now, a California county official has announced plans to put Peters back to work helping oversee elections.
All this despite Peters being on parole, under the supervision of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
Why is the state letting her travel to conferences spreading election conspiracies, and could she return to the same field she was convicted of undermining?
The conditions of her parole terms do not hold her back.
If Peters wants to get back into working in elections, there are no restrictions in her parole agreement that would prevent her from returning to election work, the Colorado Department of Corrections told The Colorado Sun.
“There are no specific restrictions regarding the type of employment Ms. Peters may obtain; however, any employment must be consistent with her existing parole agreement conditions and any other applicable court orders,” Christian Andrade, a spokesperson for the DOC, said in an email.
Andrade said Peters is required to notify her supervising community parole officer of all changes in employment.
Peters’ parole agreement requires her to seek employment or participate in a full-time educational or vocational program, which is typical for someone on parole.
But it doesn’t say anything about what kind of job.
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ Colorado Department of Corrections mug shot. (Colorado Department of Corrections)
The state can restrict whom a person on parole associates with, according to one expert. But the restriction is typically limited in scope and it’s unclear whether it can impact a person’s employment. It’s not known whether any such restriction was considered for Peters.
Under conditions of her parole, Peters must seek her parole officer’s permission before leaving the state.
People convicted of federal crimes can be barred from working in jobs if there’s a concern they could use their position to commit another crime.
Where Peters, 70, works could be an issue.
The registrar of voters in Shasta County, California, Clint Curtis, has said he plans to hire Peters before this year’s midterm elections to work as a consultant or assistant registrar of voters. Assuming she would work there in person, that would involve a two-step process to transfer her parole to California.
First, Colorado would have to review a request to transfer Peters’ parole to California. Then California officials would have to decide whether to accept the transfer and assume responsibility for overseeing her parole under the rules of the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision, which Colorado participates in.
So far, Peters hasn’t requested to transfer her parole out of Colorado, Colorado Department of Corrections spokesperson Alondra Gonzalez said.
One of Peters’ lawyers, Peter Ticktin, said Peters is considering the possibility.
“Tina Peters is giving consideration to helping in the efforts in Shasta County as there most definitely has been monkey business in the way the election was handled,” he said in a statement. “Tina is one of the key voices leading the effort to get the invasive machines out of our election process.”
No formal job proposal
However, a spokesperson for Shasta County, Miranda Angel, said there is no formal proposal to replace the current assistant registrar of voters. If the job opened up, candidates would have to follow the county’s typical application process, which includes undergoing a background check. It’s not clear whether having a felony conviction would prevent someone from serving in that role, Angel said.
Departments that hire consultants, meanwhile, usually have to get approval from either the county’s chief executive or a supermajority of the county’s board of supervisors, depending on the cost to hire and pay a worker, she said.
California’s U.S. senators, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, urged California Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a letter Wednesday to intervene and prevent Peters from being hired.
“We are concerned that this hiring decision in Shasta County has less to do with Ms. Peters’ qualifications, and more to do with the President’s obsession with interfering in the midterm elections — having suggested a need to ‘take over the voting’ by installing individuals who would put the President’s agenda above following the law and fixation on passage of the SAVE Act, which would create significant barriers to the ballot for millions of Americans,” they wrote.
Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters speaks during the Truth and Justice Rally at the old Mesa County Courthouse on December 1, 2021, in Grand Junction. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)
David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, which coordinates a network providing legal support to election officials who have faced harassment tied to election denial, said the reported job offer appeared to be “performance art.”
“It’s highly questionable that county officials could spend any taxpayer dollars on this or give any authority to a convicted and unrepentant felon like Ms. Peters,” Becker said in a statement.
Peters’ Colorado parole order does contain some limitations. For example, she is barred from possessing firearms or using alcohol or illegal drugs.
A line to address limits on “association” says that category is not applicable to her.
Gonzalez referred a question about its exact meaning to the parole board. The parole board office director, Rachel Goldstein, did not respond to a request for an explanation.
Association usually refers to restrictions on contact with people who have felony convictions, and can include limits on visits to correctional facilities, contact with others on supervision and other activities, said Jennifer Dillon, a spokesperson for the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition. Some states automatically impose those kinds of restrictions in all parole cases but Colorado’s parole board imposes them on a case-by-case basis, she said.
In Peters’ case, the parole board did choose to impose some additional restrictions beyond the standard ones — undergoing a mental health assessment, participating in cognitive behavioral therapy and staying away from the unnamed subject of a protection order.
“Revenge campaign” lawsuit reveals White House email
Polis cut Peters’ nine-year sentence in half and ordered her to be released on parole May 15 amid pressure from Trump to set her free.
Polis said he thought she was punished too harshly because she had promoted “unpopular and incorrect conspiracy beliefs.” Her right to speak out about those beliefs also figured in the state appeals court decision ordering that she be resentenced. Polis stepped in before that could happen.
Gov. Jared Polis is interviewed by CPR at Farrell B. Howell Elementary School in North Denver on July 28, 2026. (McKenzie Lange/CPR News via the Colorado Capitol News Alliance)
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing the Trump administration for waging a “revenge campaign,” including cutting off funding and ending federal programs, against the state to win Peters’ release. That lawsuit recently revealed an email from a White House assistant setting up a “brainstorm call” with members of federal agencies in December to discuss “immediate actions” that can be taken regarding Colorado hours before Trump attacked Polis, accusing him of putting Peters behind bars.
Shortly after that, the Trump administration denied requests for disaster relief related to the Lee and Elk wildfires and flooding in southwestern Colorado and tried to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, among other federal actions involving Colorado.
Citing that email, Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet on Thursday called on leaders of the Senate to investigate what he said was a “political vendetta” by the Trump administration against Colorado.
“The Trump administration’s coordinated weaponization of the federal bureaucracy — intended to compel Colorado to pardon an individual convicted of state crimes in state court — is unprecedented, and strikes at the core of our democracy and our Constitution’s federal architecture,” Bennet, a Democrat, wrote to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.
The White House did not return an emailed request for comment on Bennet’s call for an investigation.
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Type of Story: News
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